Application System Databases

Most application systems either manage or read data from one or more
computer databases. A database could be a set of flat files stored
on computer tape or disk or it could consist of database tables that
are managed by a Database
Management System (DBMS).

A Data Base Management System is special software that manages the
organization, storage, access, security and integrity of data in a structured
database. The most widely used data base management systems today are
Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, ASE and MySQL.

Some Data Base Management Systems can be accessed directly using
programming languages such as COBOL while others provide their own programming
language for interacting with the database. Many DBMS applications
also provide reporting and query tools to view data in the database.

There are different types of DBMSs: relational, network and
hierarchical. The most widely commonly used type of DBMS today is the
Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS).